American Psycho

  She cracks it open excitedly, then studies the fortune, confused.

  “What does it say?” I sigh, fooling around with the radio then scanning the limo for Owen’s briefcase, wondering where the champagne could possibly be, the open box from Tiffany’s, empty, empty on the floor, suddenly, overwhelmingly, depressing me.

  “It says …” She pauses then squints at it closely, rereading it. “It says, The fresh grilled foie gras at Le Cirque is excellent but the lobster salad is only so-so.”

  “That’s nice,” I murmur, looking for champagne glasses, tapes, anything.

  “It really says this, Patrick.” She hands me the fortune, a slight smile creeping up on her face that I can make out even in the darkness of the limo. “What could it possibly mean?” she asks slyly.

  I take it from her, read it, then look at Evelyn, then back at the fortune, then out the tinted window, at snow flurries swirling around lampposts, around people waiting for buses, beggars staggering directionless down city streets, and I say out loud to myself, “My luck could be worse. It really could.”

  “Oh honey,” she says, throwing her arms around me, hugging my head. “Lunch at Le Cirque? You’re the best. You’re not the Grinch. I take it back. Thursday? Is Thursday good for you? Oh no. I can’t do it Thursday. Herbal wrap. But how’s Friday? And do we really want to go to La Cirque? How about—”

  I push her off me and knock on the divider, rapping my knuckles against it loudly until the driver lowers it. “Sid, I mean Earle, whoever, this isn’t the way to Chernoble.”

  “Yes it is, Mr. Bateman—”

  “Hey!”

  “I mean Mr. Halberstam. Avenue C, right?” He coughs politely.

  “I suppose,” I say, staring out the window. “I don’t recognize anything.”

  “Avenue C?” Evelyn looks up from marveling at the necklace Paul Owen bought Meredith. “What’s Avenue C? C as in … Cartier, I take it?”

  “It’s hip,” I assure her. “It’s totally hip.”

  “Have you been there?” she asks.

  “Millions of times,” I mutter.

  “Chernoble? No, not Chernoble,” she whines. “Honey, it’s Christmas.”

  “What in the hell does that mean?” I ask.

  “Limo driver, oh limo driver …” Evelyn leans forward, balancing herself on my knees. “Limo driver, we’re going to the Rainbow Room. Driver, to the Rainbow Room, please.”

  I push her back and lean forward. “Ignore her. Chernoble. ASAP.” I press the button and the divider goes back up.

  “Oh Patrick. It’s Christmas,” she whines.

  “You keep saying that as if it means something,” I say, staring right at her.

  “But it’s Christmas,” she whines again.

  “I can’t stand the Rainbow Room,” I say, adamant.

  “Oh why not, Patrick?” she whines. “They have the best Waldorf salad in town at the Rainbow Room. Did you like mine? Did you like my Waldorf salad, honey?”

  “Oh my god,” I whisper, covering my face with both hands.

  “Honestly. Did you?” she asks. “The only thing I really worried about was that and the chestnut stuffing.…” She pauses. “Well, because the chestnut stuffing was … well, gross, you know—”

  “I don’t want to go to the Rainbow Room,” I interrupt, my hands still covering my face, “because I can’t score drugs there.”

  “Oh …” She looks me over, disapprovingly. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Drugs, Patrick? What kind of, ahem, drugs are we talking about?”

  “Drugs, Evelyn. Cocaine. Drugs. I want to do some cocaine tonight. Do you understand?” I sit up and glare at her.

  “Patrick,” she says, shaking her head, as if she’s lost faith in me.

  “I can see you’re confused,” I point out.

  “I just don’t want any part of it,” she says.

  “You don’t have to do any of it,” I tell her. “Maybe you’re not even invited to do any of it.”

  “I just don’t understand why you have to ruin this time of year for me,” she says.

  “Think of it as … frost. As Christmas frost. As expensive Christmas frost,” I say.

  “Well …,” she says, lighting up. “It’s kind of exciting to slum, isn’t it?”

  “Thirty bucks at the door apiece is not exactly slumming, Evelyn.” Then I ask, suspiciously, “Why wasn’t Donald Trump invited to your party?”

  “Not Donald Trump again,” Evelyn moans. “Oh god. Is that why you were acting like such a buffoon? This obsession has got to end!” she practically shouts. “That’s why you were acting like such an ass!”

  “It was the Waldorf salad, Evelyn,” I say, teeth clenched. “It was the Waldorf salad that was making me act like an ass!”

  “Oh my god. You mean it, too!” She throws her head back in despair. “I knew it, I knew it.”

  “But you didn’t even make it!” I scream. “It was catered!”

  “Oh god,” she wails. “I can’t believe it.”

  The limousine pulls up in front of Club Chernoble, where a crowd ten deep waits standing outside the ropes in the snow. Evelyn and I get out, and using Evelyn, much to her chagrin, as a blocker, I push my way through the crowd and luckily spot someone who looks exactly like Jonathan Leatherdale, about to be let in, and really shoving Evelyn, who’s still holding on to her Christmas present, I call out to him, “Jonathan, hey Leatherdale,” and suddenly, predictably, the whole crowd starts shouting, “Jonathan, hey Jonathan.” He spots me as he turns around and calls out, “Hey Baxter!” and winks, giving me the thumbs-up sign, but it’s not to me, it’s to someone else. Evelyn and I pretend we’re with his party anyway. The doorman closes the ropes on us, asks, “You two come in that limo?” He looks over at the curb and motions with his head.

  “Yes.” Evelyn and I both nod eagerly.

  “You’re in,” he says, lifting the ropes.

  We walk in and I lay out sixty dollars; not a single drink ticket. The club is predictably dark except for the flashing strobe lights, and even with them, all I can really see is dry ice pumping out of a fog machine and one hardbody dancing to INXS’s “New Sensation,” which blasts out of speakers at a pitch that vibrates the body. I tell Evelyn to go to the bar and get us two glasses of champagne. “Oh of course,” she shouts back, heading tentatively toward one thin white strip of neon, the only light illuminating what might be a place where alcohol is served. In the meantime I score a gram from someone who looks like Mike Donaldson, and after debating for ten minutes while checking out this hardbody whether I should ditch Evelyn or not, she comes up with two flutes half full of champagne, indignant, sad-faced. “It’s Korbel,” she shouts. “Let’s leave.” I shake my head negative and shout back, “Let’s go to the rest rooms.” She follows.

  The one bathroom at Chernoble is unisex. Two other couples are already there, one of them in the only stall. The other couple is, like us, impatiently waiting for the stall to empty. The girl is wearing a silk jersey halter top, a silk chiffon skirt and silk sling-backs, all by Ralph Lauren. Her boyfriend is wearing a suit tailored by, I think, William Fioravanti or Vincent Nicolosi or Scali—some wop. Both are holding champagne glasses: his, full; hers, empty. It’s quiet except for the sniffling and muted laughter coming from the stall, and the bathroom’s door is thick enough to block out the music except for the deep thumping drumbeat. The guy taps his foot expectantly. The girl keeps sighing and tossing her hair over her shoulder in these strangely enticing jerky head movements; then she looks over at Evelyn and me and whispers something to her boyfriend. Finally, after she whispers something to him again, he nods and they leave.

  “Thank god,” I whisper, fingering the gram in my pocket; then, to Evelyn, “Why are you so quiet?”

  “The Waldorf salad,” she murmurs, not looking at me. “Damnit.”

  There’s a click, the door to the stall opens and a young couple—the guy wearing a double-breasted wool cavalry twill suit, cotton shirt and silk tie, all by Give
nchy, the girl wearing a silk taffeta dress with ostrich hem by Geoffrey Beene, vermeil earrings by Stephen Dweck Moderne and Chanel grosgrain dance shoes—walks out, discreetly wiping each other’s noses, staring at themselves in the mirror before leaving the rest room, and just as Evelyn and I are about to walk into the stall they’ve vacated, the first couple rushes back in and attempts to overtake it.

  “Excuse me,” I say, my arm outstretched, blocking the entrance. “You left. It’s, uh, our turn, you know?”

  “Uh, no, I don’t think so,” the guy says mildly.

  “Patrick,” Evelyn whispers behind me. “Let them … you know.”

  “Wait. No. It’s our turn,” I say.

  “Yeah, but we were waiting first.”

  “Listen, I don’t want to start a fight—”

  “But you are,” the girlfriend says, bored yet still managing a sneer.

  “Oh my,” Evelyn murmurs behind me, looking over my shoulder.

  “Listen, we should just do it here,” the girl, who I wouldn’t mind fucking, spits out.

  “What a bitch,” I murmur, shaking my head.

  “Listen,” the guy says, relenting. “While we’re arguing about this, one of us could be in there.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Us.”

  “Oh Christ,” the girl says, hands on hips, then to Evelyn and me, “I can’t believe who they’re letting in now.”

  “You are a bitch,” I murmur, disbelieving. “Your attitude sucks, you know that?”

  Evelyn gasps and squeezes my shoulder. “Patrick.”

  The guy has already started snorting his coke, spooning the powder out of a brown vial, inhaling then laughing after each hit, leaning against the door.

  “Your girlfriend’s a total bitch,” I tell the guy.

  “Patrick,” Evelyn says. “Stop it.”

  “She’s a bitch,” I say, pointing at her.

  “Patrick, apologize,” Evelyn says.

  The guy goes into hysterics, his head thrown back, sniffing in loudly, then he doubles up and tries to catch his breath.

  “Oh my god,” Evelyn says, appalled. “Why are you laughing? Defend her.”

  “Why?” the guy asks, then shrugs, both nostrils ringed with white powder. “He’s right.”

  “I’m leaving, Daniel,” the girl says, near tears. “I can’t handle this. I can’t handle you. I can’t handle them. I warned you at Bice.”

  “Go ahead,” the guy says. “Go. Just do it. Take a hike. I don’t care.”

  “Patrick, what have you started?” Evelyn asks, backing away from me. “This is unacceptable,” and then, looking up at the fluorescent bulbs, “And so is this lighting. I’m leaving.” But she stands there, waiting.

  “I’m leaving, Daniel,” the girl says. “Did you hear me?”

  “Go ahead. Forget it,” Daniel says, staring at his nose in the mirror, waving her away. “I said take a hike.”

  “I’m using the stall,” I tell the room. “Is this okay? Does anybody mind?”

  “Aren’t you going to defend your girlfriend?” Evelyn asks Daniel.

  “Jesus, what do you want me to do?” He looks at her in the mirror, wiping his nose, sniffing again. “I bought her dinner. I introduced her to Richard Marx. Jesus Christ, what else does she want?”

  “Beat the shit out of him?” the girl suggests, pointing at me.

  “Oh honey,” I say, shaking my head, “the things I could do to you with a coat hanger.”

  “Goodbye, Daniel,” she says, pausing dramatically. “I’m out of here.”

  “Good,” Daniel says, holding up the vial. “More for moi.”

  “And don’t try calling me,” she screams, opening the door. “My answering machine is on tonight and I’m screening all calls!”

  “Patrick,” Evelyn says, still composed, prim. “I’ll be outside.”

  I wait a moment, staring at her from inside the stall, then at the girl standing in the doorway. “Yeah, so?”

  “Patrick,” Evelyn says, “don’t say something you’ll regret.”

  “Just go,” I say. “Just leave. Take the limo.”

  “Patrick—”

  “Leave,” I roar. “The Grinch says leave!”

  I slam the door of the stall and start shoveling the coke from the envelope into my nose with my platinum AmEx. In between my gasps I hear Evelyn leave, sobbing to the girl, “He made me walk out of my own Christmas party, can you believe it? My Christmas party?” And I hear the girl sneer “Get a life” and I start laughing raucously, banging my head against the side of the stall, and then I hear the guy do a couple more hits, then he splits, and after finishing most of the gram I peek out from over the stall to see if Evelyn’s still hanging around, pouting, chewing her lower lip sorrowfully—oh boo hoo hoo, baby—but she hasn’t come back, and then I get an image of Evelyn and Daniel’s girlfriend on a bed somewhere with the girl spreading Evelyn’s legs, Evelyn on all fours, licking her asshole, fingering her cunt, and this makes me dizzy and I head out of the rest room into the club, horny and desperate, lusting for contact.

  But it’s later now and the crowd has changed—it’s now filled with more punk rockers, blacks, fewer Wall Street guys, more bored rich girls from Avenue A lounging around, and the music has changed; instead of Belinda Carlisle singing “I Feel Free” it’s some black guy rapping, if I’m hearing this correctly, something called “Her Shit on His Dick” and I sidle up to a couple of hardbody rich girls, both of them wearing skanky Betsey Johnson-type dresses, and I’m wired beyond belief and I start off with a line like “Cool music—haven’t I seen you at Salomon Brothers?” and one of them, one of these girls, sneers and says, “Go back to Wall Street,” and the one with the nose ring says, “Fucking yuppie.”

  And they say this even though my suit looks black in the darkness of the club and my tie—paisley, Armani, silk—is loosened.

  “Hey,” I say, grinding my teeth. “You may think I’m a really disgusting yuppie but I’m not, really,” I tell them, swallowing rapidly, wired out of my head.

  Two black guys are sitting with them at the table. Both sport faded jeans, T-shirts, and leather jackets. One has reflector sunglasses on, the other has a shaved head. Both are glaring at me. I stick out my hand at a crooked angle, trying to mimic a rapper. “Hey,” I say. “I’m fresh. The freshest, y’know … like, uh, def … the deffest.” I take a sip of champagne. “You know … def.”

  To prove this I spot a black guy with dreadlocks and I walk up to him and exclaim “Rasta Man!” and hold out my hand, anticipating a high-five. But the nigger just stands there.

  “I mean”—I cough—“Mon,” and then, with less enthusiasm, “We be, uh, jamming.…”

  He brushes past me, shaking his head. I look back at the girls. They shake their heads—a warning to me not to come back over. I turn my gaze to a hardbody who’s dancing by herself next to a column, then I finish my champagne and walk up to her, asking for a phone number. She smiles. Exit.

  Nell’s

  Midnight. I’m sitting in a booth at Nell’s with Craig McDermott and Alex Taylor—who has just passed out—and three models from Elite: Libby, Daisy and Caron. It’s nearing summer, mid-May, but the club is air-conditioned and cool, the music from the light jazz band drifts through the half-empty room, ceiling fans are whirring, a crowd twenty deep waits outside in the rain, a surging mass. Libby is blond and wearing black grosgrain high-heeled evening shoes with exaggeratedly pointed toes and red satin bows by Yves Saint Laurent. Daisy is blonder and wearing black satin tapered-toe pumps set off by splattered-silver sheer black stockings by Betsey Johnson. Caron is platinum blond and wearing stack-heeled leather boots with a pointed patent-leather toe and wool tweed turned-over calf by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel. All three of them have on skimpy black wool-knit dresses by Giorgio di Sant’Angelo and are drinking champagne with cranberry juice and peach schnapps and smoking German cigarettes—but I don’t complain, even though I think it would be in Nell’s best interest if a
nonsmoking section was initiated. Two of them are wearing Giorgio Armani sunglasses. Libby has jet lag. Of the three, Daisy is the only one I even remotely want to fuck. Earlier in the day after a meeting with my lawyer about some bogus rape charges, I had an anxiety attack in Dean & Deluca which I worked off at Xclusive. Then I met the models for drinks at the Trump Plaza. This was followed by a French movie that I completely did not understand, but it was fairly chic anyway, then dinner at a sushi restaurant called Vivids near Lincoln Center and a party at one of the models’ ex-boyfriend’s loft in Chelsea, where bad, fruity sangria was served. Last night I had dreams that were lit like pornography and in them I fucked girls made of cardboard. The Patty Winters Show this morning was about Aerobic Exercise.

  I’m wearing a two-button wool suit with pleated trousers by Luciano Soprani, a cotton shirt by Brooks Brothers and a silk tie by Armani. McDermott’s got on this wool suit by Lubiam with a linen pocket square by Ashear Bros., a Ralph Lauren cotton shirt and a silk tie by Christian Dior and he’s about to toss a coin to see which one of us is going downstairs to fetch the Bolivian Marching Powder since neither one of us wants to sit here in the booth with the girls because though we probably want to fuck them, we don’t want to, in fact can’t, we’ve found out, talk to them, not even condescendingly—they simply have nothing to say and, I mean, I know we shouldn’t be surprised by this but still it’s somewhat disorienting. Taylor is sitting up but his eyes are closed, his mouth slightly open, and though McDermott and I originally thought he was protesting the girls’ lack of verbal skills by pretending to be asleep, it dawns on us that perhaps he’s authentically shitfaced (he’s been near incoherent since the three sakes, he downed at Vivids), but none of the girls pay any attention, except maybe Libby since she’s sitting next to him, but it’s doubtful, very doubtful.

  “Heads, heads, heads,” I mutter under my breath.

  McDermott flips the quarter.

  “Tails, tails, tails,” he chants, then he slaps his hand over the coin after it lands on his napkin.